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FE that supports PHYSICALLY rotating the monitor..
Howard_Casto:
--- Quote from: Lilwolf on July 12, 2004, 08:52:30 am ---btw, the my almost ready for release emulator was suppost to support this. Well.
but..
Rotation is slower then I remember. So it will support it, but I don't think many will use it. I was a little disappointed at javas rotation speed. I will look at increasing the speed. I am doing it as easy as possible.
Anyway, it will be useable if I remove one feature... but thats the main idea around the frontend. But more of that in then next few weeks.
--- End quote ---
I think you are confused on the topic lilwolf. We are talking about rotating the physical monitor, not the video output. :)
Lilwolf:
No, I understood...
my (soonish to be released) frontend was designed so it would work on a cocktail table where you could take control from any of 3 sides.... and it would rotate, and update the controls used to select and launch a game.
This would be useful for a rotating monitor. So when you rotate the monitor, it would then adjust the skin to one that is proper for the angle viewing, (it would also update the controls, but that wouldn't be necessary here). And then it would also allow you to change your defaults for mame (to have them run at the proper rotation).
So you could rotate the monitor, have a button switch automatically pressed when it moves to vertical (for instance). It would then change the skin to a vertical one, and use mames defaults needed to run all games at vertical. It also has sets the base sort / filters to the games you want for that controlpanel/orientation.
Its all working (those features anyway) but when rotating its drawing about 1/4 speed. And noticeable. And thats on a decent system (2ghz). I was hoping that the automatic rotation in java would have been more efficient (since it could be using hardware for rotation). I'm hoping to test it with jdk1.5 soon and see if that takes care of the speed problems.
Howard_Casto:
How would that be useful? If you are going to rotate within the fe then you are in for an unenjoyable experience as you have to wait upwards of 40 seconds for the monitor to rotate even with the fastest of motors. Imho the "proper" way to do it would be to check if the game is vertical prior to launch and if it is run exes in the following sequence:
rotateVert.exe (app that rotates the monitor)
mame.exe
wait until finished
rotateHor.exe (rotates the monitor back)
wait until finished
and then display the fe again
This way the software never comes into the equation, and it shouldn't as you are using a very expensive and complicted hardware solution to the exact same problem. Also it means that dumb goobers don't have access to rotating the monitor (No physical button) so they can't burn out your motors. And the fe takes care of rotation automagically so you don't get the same dumb goober asking "U'm why is the pretty picture all sideways?"
If you are going to rotate the fe screen than that kinda defeats the purpose of physically rotating the monitor at least imho.
Lilwolf:
This is how I saw it.
Rotate the monitor.
Frontend now shows up in vertical mode.
Frontend only shows the vertical games.
rotate monitor again
frontend now shows in horizontal
frontend only shows horizontal games.
I think I could even have it rotate at the speed of the turning if it took 45 seconds. So it would show up new perfect while the monitor is in the middle of rotating. But that would require some minor changes... And only happen if someone asks.
JoyMonkey:
How about this;
Install two frontends; one vertical and one horizontal.
PC boots into the last frontend that was used, showing all games (vertical and horizontal).
Lets say it starts with the horizontal frontend:
When you select a game, instead of launching Mame, it could launch a little "CheckerApp" that checks the games orientation, if the game is vertical it rotates the monitor, then launches Mame.
When you exit a vertical game, the vertical front end would be displayed, showing vertical and horizontal games.
Does this make any sense?